We saw "Avatar" in 3-D and Imax and it was a fine spectacle... we were decidedly entertained, despite the missing "good solid story telling, plot and acting". Took a few hours after the "wow!" of the visuals to say, "Hmm... crappy movie." But, I'm not sorry we saw it because they were pretty pictures.

However, we recently saw Werner Herzog's documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", which is all about the visuals: the prehistoric art of Chauvet cave. The 3-D really helped to get the sense of the art in its cave context.

We were at the same theater for another movie before seeing "Cave" and noted that the ticket sellers were warning people (a decidedly mature audience) that some folks had a motion-sickness response... no warning happened to be offered on the day we went. The initial scenes (hiking up to the cave with a shaky hand-held camera) were rough for me, the rest was fine.

So, I guess my conclusion is that 3-D can have its uses, but probably is a waste for most movies. Fun for the kids for action films. And a tool to consider for some films with particular visual interest.

~ Becky in Tucson